Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-42864-4 — the Creole Debate John H

Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-42864-4 — The Creole Debate John H. McWhorter Index More Information

Index

Aboh, Enoch, 3–4, 8–9, 16, 25, 35, 69, cycle, 82 130–131, 144, 148 Feature Pool hypothesis and, 43–45, creoles as a product of competition 62, 144 and selection, 121–122 Angloromani, 53 creolization as second-language Ansaldo, Umberto, 8–9, 110, 113, 121, acquisition, 84 137, 143–144 criticism of the Creole conception of creoles, 3–4 Exceptionalism hypothesis, 110, creole analyticity, 123, 130, 148 119–121 Creole Exceptionalism hypothesis as discussion of elision in grammatical Eurocentricity, 105, 122–128 gender, 148 approximations of approximations, Feature Pool hypothesis, 39, 108, 49–51 110–111, 121 Arabic, 23, 40–41, 82 inflectional affixation, 111 Arabic-based creoles, 40–41, 60, 93 inflectional loss and syntax, 112–113 Aramaic, 145 intertwined language, 54 Asia Minor Greek, 124 OV order, 116 Australian Aboriginal languages, 44 response to the Palenquero Australian English, 61 Challenge, 113–115 Australian language groups, 82 Saramaccan derivation, 117–119 Austronesian, 108 second-language acquisition, 129 tone of writing, 137 Bajan creole, 58 Universal Grammar hypothesis, 140 Baker, Philip, 21, 49 verbal reduplication, 116–117 Bakker, Peter, 20, 31, 73, 92, 114–115, Aboriginal English creole varieties, 49 125, 134–137 Abun, 95 Balkan languages, 3, 131 African serial verbs, 44 Bambara, 100 African-American, 48, see also Bantu, 40, 42, 44–45, 53, 55, 82, 139 American Black English “analytic” indigenous, 46 Afrikaans, 106, 138 overspecification in southern African Aghem, 76 varieties, 94 Akan, 46, 109 Bari, 40 Akha, 128, 133 basilectalization, 50 Albanian, 131 Bass, Trevor, 134 Aleut, 53 Bengali, 42 Amazonian Sprachbunds, 131 Bentz, Christian, 93 American Black English, 57–59 Berber, 23 analyticity, 123, 130, 147–148 Berdicevskis, Aleksandrs, 93 as a normal condition of grammars, Berwick, Robert, 134 125–127 Biberauer, Teresa, 88

165

166 Index

Bickerton, Derek, 1–2, 33–34, 72, analyticity as a normal condition of 87–88, 145 grammars, 125–127 bilingualism, 52, 54 Ansaldo’s view of, 110, 122–128 bioprogram hypothesis, 1–2, 33, 87 creole cluster, 30–32 Bislama, 47, 49 creole vs. intertwined languages, Black English. See American Black 20–21 English creoles come from pidginization, Bloom, Alfred H., 106 9–15 Bobangi dialects, 23 creole creators prepose the Bøegh, Kristoffer Friis, 136 lexifier’s negator to the verb, Bolinger, Dwight, 24 14 Bolton, Kingsley, 52 demonstration cases, 14–15 Bonami, Olivier, 105 elimination of case distinctions in Borchsenius, Finn, 31 lexifier pronouns, 11–12 Boyé, Gilles, 105 generalization of the infinitive, Brain and Behavioral Sciences 11–12 (journal), 1 omission of the copula, 10 Brousseau, Anne-Marie, 86 DeGraff’s view of, 72–73, 83, 89 DeGraff’s view of adherents, 64–65, Cajun French, 61 81 Cape Verdean Portuguese, 26 explanation for Saramaccan Caribbean English creoles, 1, 23 derivation, 118–119 Casamance, 125 grammatical complexity, 105–109 case-neutral pronouns, 67 myth of refutation, 129–130 CE. See Creole Exceptionalism review of the latest Uniformitarian hypothesis work, 131–136 Celtic, 131 sociopolitical element, 136–141 Charpentier, Jean-Michel, 14, 49 substrate contribution, 9–17 Chaudenson, Robert, 34, 49–51 creole genesis, 15, 85, 115, 132 Chemakuan, 77 Aboh’s view of, 110, 115, 120–121 Chinese, 127, see also Mandarin as a language mixture, 33 Chinese; Old Chinese as a mixture of features, 40 Chinese Pidgin English, 125 Mufwene’s view of, 4, 34–35, 60 Chinese Pidgin Russian, 23 role of second-language acquisition, Chinook Jargon, 15–16, 47, 49, 52, 60, 35, 129–130 72, 113, 124 simplification as central to, 55 Aboh’s “vulnerability” account, syntactocentric approach, 85 122 top-down conception, 50 evidential markers, 77–78 Uniformitarian view of, 144, Feature Pool analysis, 41–42 147–148 Chrau, 24, 26 Creole Prototype hypothesis, 21–27, Coast Salish, 77 90, 132 Cockney English, 16, 48 DeGraff’s criticism of, 63 Colarusso, John, 91, 99 in sociohistorical reality, 29–30 copula, omission of, 10 inflection, 22–23 CP. See Creole Prototype hypothesis lexicalization, 24–27 Cree, 91 over time, 28–29 Creole Exceptionalism hypothesis, 8, refutation of, 10–27 35, 85, 114, 117 tone, 23–24 Aboh’s criticism of, 110, 119–121 vs. complexity claim, 108–109

Index 167

creole studies, 144–145 Universal Grammar hypothesis, 140 debate over validity, 141–143 view of the Creole Exceptionalism creolization, 7, 14, 88, 116, 120, 131, hypothesis, 72–73, 83, 89, 133 146–147 view of the Creole Exceptionalism analyticity and, 130 hypothesis adherents, 64–65, 81 Creole Exceptionalism hypothesis Déprez, Viviane, 87 and, 21 derivational morphology, 117–119 elision of more than inflectional descent of man, The (Darwin), 81 affixation, 113 Dinka, 98 Feature Pool hypothesis and, 35, 37, Dixon, R. M. W., 91–92, 125 39, 54, 118 Dravidian language groups, 82 inflectional loss not always Dutch, 12–13, 128 compensated for by syntax, 112–113 Edo, 147 loss of inflection in, 111 Egyptian, 82 opaque derivation and, 26 English, 3, 53, 78, 86, 93, 138 Parameters, Periphery and Functional as a “creole,” 131–134 Categories hypothesis and, 2, counterfactuality, 106 64, 71–73, 85–88 grammatical complexity, 106 representative of second-language impact of Scandinavian, 84 acquisition, 84, 143 lack of grammatical gender marking, Crowley, Terry, 49 69 Culicover, Peter, 88, 92 predicate negator morpheme, 13 Cupopia, 55 varieties and the Feature Pool Cushitic, 3, 53 hypothesis, 57–59 Czech, 148 ergativity in Indo-Portuguese creoles, 74–75 Dahl, Östen, 92 Ethio-Semitic languages, 3 Dale, Rick, 92, 127 evidential marking, 77–78, 99, 128 Daman Creole Portuguese, 74 Darwin, Charles, 81 Fanakalo, 16 Daval-Markussen, Aymeric, 31, 92, Faraclas, Nicholas, 105 125, 134–136 Feature Pool hypothesis, 6–7, 32–34, DeGraff, Michel, 2–6, 8–9, 16, 30, 60–62, 144 90–91, 110–111, 117, 139, 144, Aboh and, 110–111, 113–114, 118, 148, see also Parameters, 121 Periphery and Functional analysis of Palenquero Creole Categories hypothesis Spanish, 37–40, 124 complex features in Haitian Creole, claims of misrepresentation, 59–60 101–104, 108 competition and selection, 121–122 creole studies as essentialist mistake, critical evaluation 146 comparison between language English as a creole, 131 contact varieties, 56–59 failure to discuss Sãotomense, 148 creoles did not emerge via gradual on measures of grammatical “approximations,” 49–51 complexity, 99 evidence of pidginization, 46–49 on structural elaboration, 96 influence of interpreters rather than overspecification, 95 pidgins, 51–52 phylogenetic evidence, 134–135 intertwined language challenge, second-language acquisition, 129 53–56

168 Index

Feature Pool hypothesis (cont.) Good, Jeff C., 92, 101 unfalsifiability, 43–45 Gould, Stephen Jay, 100, 107 incompatibility with creoles other Goulden, Richard J., 48 than Palenquero, 40–43 Grace, George W., 92 Mufwene’s presentation of, 36–37, grammars 108 analyticity as a normal condition of, schema, 34–36 125–127 Flores, 144 application of the Pararmeters, Fongbe, 7, 10, 17–19, 108, 126 Periphery and Functional analyticity, 37, 127, 147 Categories hypothesis, 67–71 compared with Sranan, 5–7, 78 grammatical complexity, 83–84, 88, 90 features in Saramaccan, 19, 71 Creole Exceptionalism hypothesis free morphemes, 113 adherents’ assumptions, 105–107 grammatical complexity, 135 Creole Exceptionalism hypothesis compared with Haitian Creole, opponents’ assumptions, 103–104, 113 107–108 influence on Haitian Creole, 131 Creole Prototype hypothesis and, serial verb constructions, 44, 86, 113, 108–109 120 creoles compared with older Foucault, Michel, 137 languages, 99–105 FP. See Feature Pool hypothesis arbitrariness, 99–100 French, 34, 131, 146 inflectional affixation, 104–105 inflectional morphology, 73 list of features, 101–104 predicate negator morpheme, 13 speculation vs. demonstration, vernacular, 42 100–101 weak inflection, 65 differences in, 90–93 French colloquial dialects, 11 irregularity, 98–100, 105, 132–133 French creoles, 12, 29–30, 50 overspecification, 94–96, 100, 105 gender marking, 69 structural elaboration, 96–98, 105, generalization of infinitive, 11 132 French Guyanais, 125 English, 132–134 French plantation creoles, 10 features used in measurement, 93–99 origins, 78 grammatical gender marking, 22, frequency (transformational process), 69–70, 112, 114–115 65–66, 75–77 vs. biological gender marking, 86 Fula, 23 grammaticalization, 5–7, 142, 144–145 functional category ellipsis, 66, 70, Grant, Anthony, 49 75–76, 78, 130 Greek, 124 Guadeloupean, 125 Gao, Yongming, 99 Guinea-Bissau Creole Portuguese, 40–41 Gbe, 42, 46, 68, 109–110, 116, 120 Gujarati, 74 OV-ordered constructions, 116 Gulf of Guinea Portuguese creoles, 50, Generative studies on creole languages 59, 73, 115 (Muysken, 1981), 1 Gullah Creole English, 42, 58–59, 146 German, 81 Gurindji Kriol, 125 heterogeneous verb placement, 96 German-based creoles, 60 Haida, 77 Germanic, 82, 106, 132 Haitian Creole, 3, 13, 29–30, 61, Gil, David, 27, 92, 144 63–64, 78, 88–89, 107, 112, Goldshtein, Yonatan, 40 134–135, 146, 148

Index 169

adoption of tonic vs. atonic Parameters, Periphery and Functional pronouns, 70 Categories hypothesis and, 81–82 analyticity, 37 vulnerability, 111 application of the Parameters, interlanguage, 80–81 Periphery and Functional interpreters, 51–52 Categories hypothesis to, 67–73 intertwined languages, 20–21, 53–56 compared to English, 131–134 Inuktitut, 52 derivation, 117–118 Irish Gaelic, 66 features of grammatical complexity, irregularity, 98–100, 105, 132–133, 101–104, 108 135, 138 generalization of the infinitive, 11 Italian, 137 grammar, 66 lack of OV order, 116 Jackendoff, Ray, 85, 88 loss of gender marking, 69 Jansson, Frederik, 54 subject pronominals, 87 Japanese syntax and relatedness, 79–80 grammar, 91 weak inflection, 65 past marking, 94 Hartmann, Stefan, 93 Javanese, 53 Hausa, 91 Jourdan, Christine, 49 Hawaiian Creole English, 2, 14, 47, Juba Arabic, 41 49–50, 140 Heine, Bernd, 100 Kabardian, 99 Helvecian Portuguese, 69 Kalapuya, 77 Henri, Fabiola, 105 Karlsson, Fred, 92 Henry, Alison, 65 Kathlamet Chinookan, 41, 121 heterogeneous object pronominal order, Kaufman, Terence, 36, 138 68 Keesing, Roger M., 14, 18, 49, 72 Hiligaynon, 75 Khmer, 135–136 historical linguistics, 78–84, 142 Kihm, Alain, 88, 114 Hixkaryana, 77 Kikongo, 18, 20, 23, 37, 39, 55, 61, Holm, John, 2, 31, 138 147 Holmberg, Anders, 88 dialect morphologies, 43–44 features in common with Spanish, 46 Icelandic, 93 past tense distinctions, 94 Indo-Aryan, 82 synthetic dialects, 44–45 Indo-Iranian, 82 syntheticity, 130 Indonesian, 53 Kikuyu, 130 Indo-Portuguese creoles, 74–75 Kimbundu, 55, 147 infinitive marker with control, 68 Kiteke dialect, 45–46 inflection Kituba, 23, 45 contextual vs. inherent, 22–23, Kiyansi dialect, 45–46 113–115 koines, 23 weak, 65 Korlai Portuguese Creole, 74 inflectional affixation, 67, 97, 104–105, Kortmann, Bernd, 93 135 Koyra Chiini, 23 as a grammatical norm, 127 Kroch, Anthony, 84 creolization elides more than, 113 Kupwar languages, 131 in Akha, 128 Kusters, Wouter, 92, 127 loss of not always compensated for Kwa, 127 by syntax, 112–113 Kwaio, 94

170 Index

Laberge, Suzanne, 140 McWhorter, John H., 14, 50–51, 78, Lahu, 77, 101, 105, 123 92, 96, 99, 101, 105, 112, 119, Lang, George, 52 129, 137 language contact, 30, 33, 36, 64, 93, grammatical complexity, 108 121 Haitian, 63 Creole Exceptionalism hypothesis overspecification, 95 and, 20 Media Lengua, 20–21, 53–55, 125 Feature Pool hypothesis and, 43, Mednyj Aleut, 53, 56 56–59, 61 Melanesian languages, 44, 94 iconicity and transparency, 125 Michif, 53, 124–125 linguistic theory, 82–84 Miestamo, Matti, 92 loss of inflections, 111 Modern English, 3, 131 second-language transfer and, 72 Modern Standard Arabic, 93 language hoax, The (McWhorter), 107 Mon-Khmer, 24 Latin, 79, 97, 128, 131, 147 Moroccan Arabic, 93 genders, 69 morphophonemics, 96–97 Latin American Spanish, 56–57, 69 Mufwene, Salikoko, 2–4, 6, 8–9, 14, Lefebvre, Claire, 2, 66, 86, 121 32, 84, 108, 140, 146, 148, see Levisen, Carsten, 31 also Feature Pool hypothesis lexicalization, 24–28 criticism of creole studies, 142–144 opaque, 29–30, 63, 86–87 discussion of Sãotomense, 147 Lightfoot, David, 143 influence of, 110–111 Lingala, 23 overspecification, 95 Lower Chinook, 77 Palenquero Challenge, 130 Luís, Ana R., 114 second-language acquisition, 129 Lumsden, John S., 66 view of the Creole Exceptionalism Lupyan, Gary, 92, 127 hypothesis, 15, 98, 133, 136–137 Ma’a, 125 writing style, 129, 135 Magoua French, 27, 69 Mühlhäusler, Peter, 14, 49, 84 Makhuwa, 42 multidialectalism, 137 Malagasy, 42–43 multilingualism, 137 Malay, 123, 130 Muysken, Pieter, 20 Malay-based creoles, 60 Mamvu, 40 Nakh-Dagestanian, 99 Mandarin Chinese, 24, 99, 106, Nalik, 76 122–123, 126, 133, 135–136 Native American languages, 82 Mandinka, 42 grammar, 91 Mandres Albanian, 69 Navajo, 98 Maori, 101, 105, 123 Ndjuka Creole English, 48, 135 Marathi, 74 Negerhollands Creole Dutch, 12–13 Martinique, 50 neonate languages, 139 Matras, Yaron, 36 Newmeyer, Frederick J., 87, 92 Matthews, Stephen J., 122–123, 126, Ngbandi, 47 143 Nicaraguan Sign Language, 140 Mauritian Creole French, 10, 34, Niger-Congo, 66, 108 42–43, 54–55 Nilotic languages, 40, 98 long and short verb forms, 105–106 Nölle, Jonas, 93 syntax and relatedness, 79–80 Nootka, 77 Mbugu, 53, 55–56 Nordhoff, Sebastian, 123–124

Index 171

Nubi Creole Arabic, 40–41 syntactocentrism, 85–87 Nurse, Derek, 44, 100 syntax and relatedness, 79–80 Pare, 53 object pronouns, 68 Parkvall, Mikael, 14, 31, 54, 92, 125, Ojibwe, 52 134–135, 142 Old Chinese, 27 partitive marking, 67 Old English, 3, 58–59 Patrick, Peter, 2, 31 Old Norse, 3 Peranakan, 53 Ostrobothnian Swedish, 69 Perkins, Revere D., 92 OV order, 116 Philippines Creole Spanish, 75 overspecification, 94–97, 100, Philippines languages, 75–76, 113 105–106, 133, 135 Philippines Spanish creoles, 42, 60 phylogenetic analysis, 134–136 Pacific creoles, 73 pidgin Delaware, 52 Pacific “pidgins”,55 Pidgin Ojibwe, 16 Pakvall, Mikael, 136 pidginization, 136 Palenquero Challenge, 37–38, 40, 46, degree and, 16–17 109, 124, 130, 147 Feature Pool hypothesis and evidence Aboh’s response to, 113–115 of, 46–49 unfalsifiability, 43–45 generalization of the infinitive, Palenquero Creole Spanish, 11, 13, 50, 11–12 54, 60, 112, 125 omission of the copula, 10 analyticity, 43–45, 62 Parameters, Periphery and Functional compared wtih Media Lengua, Categories hypothesis and, 70 20–21 pidgins failure of the Feature Pool hypothesis expanded, 47–49, 51, 61 to account for, 56–57 features not exclusive to, 16 Feature Pool analysis, 37–40 Parameters, Periphery and Functional object pronouns, 68 Categories hypothesis and, Palu’e, 126 71–72 Papiamentu Spanish Creole, 28–29, Uniformitarian view, 130–131 100–101 vs. pidginization, 15 Parameters, Periphery and Functional Plag, Ingo, 15, 31, 33, 81, 92, 105, Categories hypothesis, 64–67, 113–114, 125, 134–136 88–89 plantation creoles, 51, 60, 110, see also application to a grammar, French plantation creoles 67–71 Polish, 100–101, 145 comparative reconstruction, grammar, 91 78–79 Political Correctness, 137 creoles and interlanguage, 80–81 Portuguese, 12, 86, 145–146 inability to predict substrate elisions, Portuguese creoles, 12, 50, 60 73–78 generalizationof the infinitive, 12 inflection “cycle,” 81–82 Indian, 42, 55, 60 linguistic argument for language Indonesian, 42 contact, 82–84 PPF. See Parameters, Periphery and modern syntactic theory and, Functional Categories 87–88 hypothesis overgeneralization, 72–73 Preston, Laurel B., 92 pidginization, 70 Principense, 135 pidgins and, 71–72 Proto-Germanic, 132

172 Index

Proto-Niger-Congo, 78 creation of analyticity, 127 Proto-Romance languages, 3 creole development via, 2 Proto-Romance stage, 79 creolization as, 84, 143 Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic Quechua, 20, 54 languages, 81–82 Parameters, Periphery and Functional redundancy, 46–47, 61 Categories hypothesis and, reduplication, 116–117 64–66, 72 referential marking, 75–76, 113 Uniformitarian view, 129–130 relexiﬁcation theory, 66, 121, 131 semi-creoles, 138 Riau Indonesian, 27–28 Semitic, 3 Roberts, Ian, 87–88 Shasta, 41, 121–122 Roberts, Sarah J., 2, 49 Sheehan, Michelle, 88 Roma, 53 Shosted, Ryan, 92 Romance languages, 16, 40, 55, 114, Siegel, Jeff, 71 138, 145 sign language research, 144 analyticity “cycle,” 82 Singapore English (“Singlish”), 138 genders, 69 Sinhalese, 123, 130 Romani, 55 Sinitic, 123, 127, 137 Romanian, 3, 6, 16, 36, 142 Sinnemäki, Kaius, 92 Roots of language (Bickerton 1981), Sino-Tibetan, 128 145 Sippola, Eeva, 31 Russenorsk, 15–16, 72 Slave, 91 Russian, 10, 53, 97, 128 slaves, 109, 139, 141 Slavic, 91 Samarin, William, 49 Smith, Norval, 25 Sampson, Geoffrey, 92 Social Darwinists, 64 Sango, 14, 47, 49, 140 sociohistorical perspective, 3–4, 29–30, Sankoff, Gillian, 140 110, 122 Sãotomense Creole Portuguese, 39–40, sociopolitics, 3, 8, 33, 49, 81, 136–141 135, 145–148 Solomon Islands Pijin, 18, 22, 47, 49 Saramaccan Creole English, 28–29, Soninke, 27 58–59, 97, 119–120, 128, 134 Spanish, 20, 28–29, 61, 97, 112 compared with Lahu and Maori, 105 afﬁxes, 39 compared with Tsez, 99–101, 103 Chota Valley, 70 derivational morphology, 117–119 colloquial, 56–57 Fongbe features, 7, 18–19, 71 compared with Kikongo, 37 grammar, 37, 135 Spanish-based creoles, 60 grammatical complexity, 101, 106 SplitsTree program, 134 lack of OV order, 116 Sranan Creole English, 5–7, 17, 36, 53, lexicalization, 26, 113 58, 78, 112–113, 118 serial verbs, 86 analyticity, 40 tone and stress, 23 Feature Pool hypothesis and, 47–51, verbal reduplication, 116 61 Scandinavian, 3, 84, 131 Sri Lanka Malay, 123 second-language acquisition, 15, 30, Stammbaum approach, 142 58, 69–70, 81, 111, 117, Steffanson, Vilhjalmur, 52 146–148 Strimling, Pontus, 54 African coastal languages and, 109 structural elaboration, 96–98, 105, contextual morphology, 23 132, 135

Index 173

subjunctive marking, 68, 112 Trudgill, Peter, 125, 127 substrate elisions, 74 Tryon, Darrell T., 14, 49 substrate influence, 17–19, 33–34, 66, Tsez, 99–101, 105, 123 75, 103 Tsimshian, 77 Sudanese Arabic, 40 Turkish, 125 superstratist school, 34 Turkish grammar, 91 Supyire, 45 Twi, 18 Surinam, 18 serial verb constructions, 44 Surinam creoles, 7, 10, 12, 50, 73, 118, see also Sranan Creole English Uniformitarian Hypothesis, 8 Swahili, 93, 96 Uniformitarianism, 131–136 noun classes, 95 linguistically deficient creoles, Swedish, 3 139–141 syntactic theory, 1, 69 Universal Grammar, 1, 85, 107, 140 Chomskyan, 1, 85, 88, 108–109, 112 Uralic language groups, 82 modern, 87–88 Urdu, 131 syntactocentrism, 85–87, 112–115 syntax Vanuatu, 47 Parameters, Periphery and Functional Veenstra, Tonjes, 15, 86 Categories hypothesis and, Vietnamese, 16, 125 85–88 relatedness and, 79–80 Welsh, 96–97 syntheticity, 125–127 West African languages, 10, 136 Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt, 93 western Danish, 69 Whorfian tradition, 106 Takelma, 77 Winford, Donald, 36, 58 Tamian Latvian, 69 Winter, Bodo, 93 Tamil, 42, 123, 130 Wittman, Henri, 27 Tangney, Denise, 65 Wolof, 42–43 Tây Bôi Pidgin French, 11 World atlas of language structures Thomason, Sarah G., 30, 36, 52, 138, (Haspelmath, Dryer, Gil & 143 Comrie 2005), 31, 134 Thurston, William R., 92, 103 Wray, Alison, 92 Timor, 144 Tinits, Peeter, 93 Yao, 42 Tirailleur, 11 Yiddish, 16, 142 Tok Pisin, 47–49, 51, 84, 105, 140 morphological and syntactic Zamboangueño dialect, 75 expansion, 14 Zenk, Henry Benjamin, 49 tone, 23–24, 105, 122–123 Zulu, 16, 93 Tongan, 75 Zulu Fanakalo (pidgin), 23